31 January 2012 12:09 AM

As prisoners taunt victims on Facebook, only stricter parenting will protect our children from this toxic cocktail of permissiveness and technology

Public faith in the criminal justice system has never been lower. This disillusion has been fuelled by the widespread perception that courts are too lenient, sentences too short, and prisons too lax.

The indignation of law-abiding citizens can only have been reinforced by reports that a growing number of prisoners are now using mobile technology to access social networking websites like Facebook - and then using them to taunt their victims.

In the last two years alone, almost 350 convicted offenders have been caught posting on Facebook, and this number is likely to represent only a fraction of the prisoners who have recently visited the site. Such activity is meant to be against prison regulations and makes a mockery of the very concept of jail, which is supposed to punish inmates by depriving them of some of the liberties that we enjoy on the outside.

But what is even worse is that prisoners are using this illicit access to the internet to bully, harass and threaten people on the outside. This sickening online behaviour helps to create a climate of fear and strengthens thugs’ belief in their own invincibility, even when they are behind bars.

Through this abuse of the internet, victims are punished all over again. They are denied the safety and reassurance that should come from locking up violent criminals. Moreover, the legal system is also undermined, for witnesses in forthcoming trials could be dissuaded from giving evidence.

If we had more rigorous, more secure prison regimes, then the incidences of cyber bullying from the inside would be radically reduced. After all, prisoners are not supposed to have any access to internet, except when they are attending educational classes in computer rooms, where the equipment is kept under lock and key. But the inmates get round these restrictions by using mobile phones, which are smuggled inside by visitors or by crooked guards. Some are also passed over the walls of jails.

Ironically, the authorities like to adopt a pose of toughness towards visitors, as I have found during my own research studies. Before being allowed inside, visitors have to hand over all the possessions in their pockets, including keys and mobiles.

But the illusion of security is false. Within the prisons, the use of mobiles is common. I am told by my prison contacts that, in the average prison, around 60 to 90 mobiles are confiscated every month. Furthermore, a robust search for mobiles involving sniffer dogs can yield an average of 120 phones in an institution with 1200 inmates. The central reason that mobiles are so popular is because the prisoners, locked up for long periods in their own cells and only allowed very limited use of the institutional landlines, are desperate for contact with outside. So mobiles, like cigarettes, have become a clandestine currency, invaluable for favours and bribes.

What is also striking is how this pattern of malicious internet conduct by criminals mirrors the worst aspects of our modern online youth culture, where savagery and indecency are commonplace. It is part of a disturbing wider pattern of vicious aggression and persecution that runs through the whole cyber world: though it is most prevalent among children and young people, and undoubtedly more harmful for them.

Just as the inmates operate beyond the influence of their guards, so the juvenile online bullies, exhibitionists and peddlers of hate have nothing but contempt for adult authority or boundaries.

At its most sinister, the online world is a terrifying place, where personal abuse is common.

One manifestation of this terrible culture is the emergence of ’trolls’ - twisted individuals who delight in posting inflammatory posts with the aim of causing other internet users pain. The term is thought to derive from a fishing technique of slowly dragging a baited hook from a moving boat, a horrific image which perfectly encapsulates the emotional damage internet trolls leave in their wake.

It is like a virtual Lord of the Flies universe, governed only by spite and the exercise of raw power. Any youngster trying to stand up to this culture needs tremendous resilience, but few have such resources. That is why we have witnessed in recent years a string of tragic cases where children and teenagers have committed suicide as a result of cyber bullying.

The fusion of technological advances with unbridled youth freedom has created a toxic cocktail which places our children in great danger.

Unlike any previous revolutions in human history, the technological revolution is a change where children and young teenagers, devoid of experience and judgement, are leading the way. We have in our midst an entire system of social interaction without any adult mediators or gatekeepers - a world in which convicted criminals are allowed to threaten, harass and bully at will - something we would not dream of tolerating in any other sphere.

We rightly seek to protect youngsters from sexual or violent excess by regulating newspapers, television, and the cinema, yet that approach is completely ignored in the free-for-all that is the internet. It is no wonder, then, that around 750,000 children under the age of 13 have illicitly visited websites that are supposed to be restricted to adults and older teenagers.

The process of exposure has been compounded by the breakdown in the traditional family structures and modes of parenting. With fatherless families on the rise and mothers increasingly encouraged to go out to work even soon after giving birth, too many children are growing up in households without firm parental guidance, love and routine. Left to themselves alone in their own bedrooms, they are able to access anything and everything on their computers and are prey to negative online pressures.

The ubiquity of the web only strengthens the power of online youth culture. The computer is now the engine that drives young people’s lives, and Facebook is strengthening its grip through new features such as Timeline, which means that a user’s entire online social history is exposed for public scrutiny. It is reported that the site will this week begin the process of becoming a publicly listed company, floating on the stock market at a cost of $100bn. This colossal figure reflects the behemoth the social networking site has become, infiltrating nearly every facet of society.

The web, once the servant of society, is fast becoming the master. We cannot deny that the internet has brought some wonderful benefits for mankind, like expanding the horizons of entertainment and knowledge, while transforming enterprise. But nor can it be disputed that it has perverted the process of socialising young people. So what is the answer? Some more authoritarian countries, like China, have tried to curb the net’s influence by restricting access to a range of key sites, but it is impossible to imagine that happening in Britain. The uproar would be too great. No Government would risk the unpopularity of such a move.

So I fear that the only solution is an old-fashioned one, with parents taking back responsibility for their children’s online experiences. As a mother, I have discovered that this is far from easy. When I attempted to befriend my son on Facebook, in order to find out what he was being exposed to, I was horrified at the level of bullying I witnessed. Even the most robust and ‘grounded’ of teenagers can be ‘stricken’ and humiliated by ‘exposure’ on Facebook - its not just girls who suffer gross humiliations.

In practice, shielding ones children from this means being on the ball and proactive in limiting their children’s access to this internet world - just as prison officers should be limiting inmates’ access to the internet. In addition to firewalling (creating automatic ‘blocks’ for some sites), parents should be banning TVs, computers and mobiles in bedrooms. This means hard work - being liberal is always easier and involves less conflict - but parents simply cannot afford not to know what their children are up to or exposed to online.

This vigilance is something which the prison service must certainly emulate. But online abuse isn’t just a serious problem for parents, or the penal system - it is a modern-day sickness, which is infecting the whole of society.

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